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Grudge, The |
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Karen and Doug has
recently moved to Japan to
start a new life there and while Karen is having
a hard time adjusting, she has managed to get a
job as a nurse. One day her colleague Yoko doesn't
show up for work so Karen has to go to take care
of an old woman who also recently moved to Japan
from America along with her entire family. Well,
there's something about the house that they moved
into, see everyone who enters the house get a
curse put on them and Karen's just about to enter
the house...
As most of you already know, The Grudge is a remake
of the popular Japanese horror movie "Ju-On: The Grudge"
which was actually also a remake of the 2000 TV-movie
entitled "Ju-On". Both the Japanese TV-movie and the
Japanese remake got sequels so this is actually the
fifth in the series and if you visit Slasherpool often
you know that I'm a big fan of the entire series. So
how does this movie work when American actors are sent
to Japan to get put under this curse? Well, I'd have
to say that it works pretty well. See, Takashi Shimizu
has not only had the chance to make this movie one
time before but four times which is a big advantage
when he makes this for the fifth time. See by now he
knows how to scare his audience really well and also
he's picked out the best (according to him) scenes from
the four previous movies to compile the final Grudge
movie (though if I know American film industry right,
this will be a huge hit and will result in yet another
sequel, but let's hope not, I've kind of gotten tired
of this story now, it's been done to death).
Takashi has really grown a lot as a director, if you
compare this to the TV-movie, well, you can't so end
of story. This is simply brilliantly directed, lighting
and everything is just perfect. And also this
makes you jump a lot, which very few American horror
movies tend to do these days. Takashi also decided
to add a little more comedy to the movie as well and
we find ourselves laughing every now and then just
to find ourselves screaming "OH MY GOD!" two seconds
later and I simply loved that.
I truly despise Sarah Michelle Gellar as an actress,
why? I don't know but I just do. However, she was
really not as annoying as I thought that she would
be in this movie, in fact she was actually pretty damn
good! You can tell that she was happy to finally get
a more serious part in a movie than just killing
vampires with her geeky friends and younger sister.
I don't get how they managed to get all these big
names into the cast though as none of them have very
big parts in the movie. My all-time favourite Ju-On
scene was handed out to KaDee Strickland who doesn't
let one down even if the scene did have a couple of
changes that I weren't too fond of, I loved the
bathroom scene, why would they remove that.
On the other hand I was happy that Takashi removed some
scenes from "Ju-On: The Grudge" that I really didn't
like and that really didn't add anything to the story
at all, instead some scenes made it even more confusing
so that was a thing that The Grudge had going for
itself. At the end of the day I have to say that
The Grudge lives up to its original (way better than
The Ring did) and actually even surpasses it on
some aspects so check this one out! It's the perfect
ghost movie just in time for Halloween.
We get to see a ripped out jaw lying on the floor
but that's just about it.
Well I'll be honest with you, I really liked this
a lot better than the original soundtrack. The piano
music in this felt way more original and the
background music set the perfect atmosphere.
Even if The Grudge might not be the best flick ever,
it serves the purpose of a good horror movie since it
manages to make you jump a lot while keeping you
interested in the story. I will have to say that The
Grudge is slightly better than the excellent original.
This movie will chill you to the bones before it
rips them out by scaring the hell out of you!
Review By: AnthroFred
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